striated melocreme, I hop into my confectionary Time Machine and find myself whisked back to ten happy days in Montana. There the sky is always big, the candy corn crop is plentiful and, from time to time, rattlesnakes have been observed.
We Shall Come Rejoicing
While out driving the other day I passed a farmer mowing the hay in his field. Mounted on the side of the tractor was a contraption that pivots to stand upright for transport or lowers flat, perpendicular to the tractor, to cut the hay. It consists of two rows of teeth that shuttle back and forth. Basically, it works on the same principle as an electric carving knife, albeit one of Jurassic proportions.
Once the hay is cut it must dry in the field for a few days before it can be raked and baled. Green (or wet) hay can spontaneously combust in the barn, and that’s not particularly desirable among farmers.
How do I know this arcane agrariana? Growing up, our house sat on the corner of my paternal grandparents’ dairy farm and bringing in the hay was one of the seasonal chores that the grandsons helped with. There are several cuttings during the growing season, but I remember helping only during July and August. I suppose I was in school the other times.
At 200 acres our family farm was small, and provided a mean existence for my grandparents. There were no hired hands, so the labors of us kids were essential to making sure the lofts were filled to feed the cows during the frigid northeast winters.
Cutting and raking are one-man jobs, done with a tractor and a machine, so I rarely came on the scene until it was time to bale the hay and take it to the barn. Pa drove the green John Deere tractor, which towed the bailing machine (in my mind’s eye it’s red, which would have made it a McCormick), which, in turn, pulled the hay wagon. That’s where my cousins and I were stationed.
On our farm we made rectangular bales; not the round behemoths seen nowadays. The lines of raked hay were fed into the bailer where the hay was formed into bales and tied with twine. From there, the bales came shooting out of the machine--high into the air, like human cannonballs at the circus--to land with a thud on the floor of the hay wagon. Presuming none of us got in the path of the oncoming projectiles, the bales were dragged to the back of the wagon and stacked neatly in rows. This continued until the floor of the wagon was covered, and then still longer until the piled rows of hay bales towered high above the ground, held in place only by a rear support and the ingenuity of the stacking system.
As our convoy bumped and jostled its way back and forth through the field under the baking July sun, it occasionally roused a spray of grasshoppers from their resting place in the hay rows. Bob-whites would complain and scurry as the cacophonous caravan came near, and once I recall a pheasant scolding us as we approached her nest.
We boys had an enormous mayonnaise jar filled with iced-tea back with us on the wagon, but Pa refreshed himself with a curious concoction called “Switchel”. Switchel (also served in a mayonnaise jar) is a particularly foul-tasting libation whose main ingredient is cider vinegar. There’s a little honey thrown in for good measure, but, although Pa swore by it, a swig of it would leave us boys gagging.
We didn’t leave the field for lunch—that would waste too much time. Gram always knew just when the sound of adolescent stomach-grumbling would be at its peak and would arrive in the battered old Rambler station wagon with potato chips, pickles, a loaf of Wonder Bread and a batch of egg salad in—of course—a mayonnaise jar. The sun, arcing across the sky, told us our break was really just a pause and we needed to finish up lunch and get back to the job. We’d wolf down our sandwiches and Gram would putter back to the house in the Rambler.
Idyllic? I hated every minute.
My cousins lived and breathed
We Shall Come Rejoicing
While out driving the other day I passed a farmer mowing the hay in his field. Mounted on the side of the tractor was a contraption that pivots to stand upright for transport or lowers flat, perpendicular to the tractor, to cut the hay. It consists of two rows of teeth that shuttle back and forth. Basically, it works on the same principle as an electric carving knife, albeit one of Jurassic proportions.
Once the hay is cut it must dry in the field for a few days before it can be raked and baled. Green (or wet) hay can spontaneously combust in the barn, and that’s not particularly desirable among farmers.
How do I know this arcane agrariana? Growing up, our house sat on the corner of my paternal grandparents’ dairy farm and bringing in the hay was one of the seasonal chores that the grandsons helped with. There are several cuttings during the growing season, but I remember helping only during July and August. I suppose I was in school the other times.
At 200 acres our family farm was small, and provided a mean existence for my grandparents. There were no hired hands, so the labors of us kids were essential to making sure the lofts were filled to feed the cows during the frigid northeast winters.
Cutting and raking are one-man jobs, done with a tractor and a machine, so I rarely came on the scene until it was time to bale the hay and take it to the barn. Pa drove the green John Deere tractor, which towed the bailing machine (in my mind’s eye it’s red, which would have made it a McCormick), which, in turn, pulled the hay wagon. That’s where my cousins and I were stationed.
On our farm we made rectangular bales; not the round behemoths seen nowadays. The lines of raked hay were fed into the bailer where the hay was formed into bales and tied with twine. From there, the bales came shooting out of the machine--high into the air, like human cannonballs at the circus--to land with a thud on the floor of the hay wagon. Presuming none of us got in the path of the oncoming projectiles, the bales were dragged to the back of the wagon and stacked neatly in rows. This continued until the floor of the wagon was covered, and then still longer until the piled rows of hay bales towered high above the ground, held in place only by a rear support and the ingenuity of the stacking system.
As our convoy bumped and jostled its way back and forth through the field under the baking July sun, it occasionally roused a spray of grasshoppers from their resting place in the hay rows. Bob-whites would complain and scurry as the cacophonous caravan came near, and once I recall a pheasant scolding us as we approached her nest.
We boys had an enormous mayonnaise jar filled with iced-tea back with us on the wagon, but Pa refreshed himself with a curious concoction called “Switchel”. Switchel (also served in a mayonnaise jar) is a particularly foul-tasting libation whose main ingredient is cider vinegar. There’s a little honey thrown in for good measure, but, although Pa swore by it, a swig of it would leave us boys gagging.
We didn’t leave the field for lunch—that would waste too much time. Gram always knew just when the sound of adolescent stomach-grumbling would be at its peak and would arrive in the battered old Rambler station wagon with potato chips, pickles, a loaf of Wonder Bread and a batch of egg salad in—of course—a mayonnaise jar. The sun, arcing across the sky, told us our break was really just a pause and we needed to finish up lunch and get back to the job. We’d wolf down our sandwiches and Gram would putter back to the house in the Rambler.
Idyllic? I hated every minute.
My cousins lived and breathed
Similar Books
